The Bulletin—July 10, 2012

The Bulletin compiles news from in and around the US South. We hope these posts will provide space for lively discussion and debate regarding issues of importance to those living in and intellectually engaging with the US South.

In the wake of the Supreme Court's recent ruling on the Affordable Care Act, we found this helpful map from the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, which shows all of the legal filings, decisions, and news in every state relating to the act. The map demonstrates how arguments over the constitutionality of the healthcare law varies across place.

A joint investigation by National Public Radio and the Center for Public Integrity released in two parts (part one yesterday and part two today) this week suggests that federal rgulators have failed to protect coal miners in eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, and southwestern Virginia from breathing excessive amounts of toxic coal dust over the last thirty years. In the affected region, cases of the worst stage of "black lung" disease have quadrupled since 1980. The report featured photographs from Earl Dotter's "Quiet Sickness" series documenting coal miners from the 1960s and 1970s. See Dotter's 2008 Southern Spaces piece "Coalfield Generations: Health, Mining, and the Environment," in which he revisits and photographs some of the same towns featured in the "Quiet Sickness" series and discusses contemporary coal mining practices and healthcare.